Corey Taylor Reveals Reason for His Two-Piece Slipknot Mask

As Slipknot prep for the release of their highly anticipated album ‘.5 The Gray Chapter,’ frontman Corey Taylor is making the rounds promoting the effort. He recently stopped by the Las Vegas-based ‘Corey Taylor Talks’ show [The female host is no relation to the Slipknot frontman] and opened up about the group's new masks, the drama behind the leak of their current bassist's identity, Stone Stour and a lot more.

The Slipknot frontman discussed the band’s new masks and the meaning behind them. “People like me, Clown, Sid and a couple of others, we change ours drastically. Because, for me, the mask is a representation of the person on the inside, and nobody stays the same over time – that's my belief,” Taylor explained. “With every album, my mask has evolved, so this one, specifically, is supposed to represent the person behind the mask, but then the person behind that person, which is one of the reasons why it's two pieces, and you can peel the one off, and it's still a representation. So it's almost like having two different faces, but it's the same person."

There's plenty of duality going on, as the singer also talked about the differences between his two bands -- Slipknot and Stone Sour. “Both help me achieve wonderful things," says Taylor. "With Slipknot there is a psychosis there for better and for worse I have to deal with, a lot of rage and a lot of issues and it helps me positively figure it out, it helps me channel that and make a great vicious noise at the same time maintaining who I am.”

He continued, “Stone Sour is kind of the other side of that coin. It’s much more personable and I don’t want to say lighter because there’s definitely a lot of heavy stuff to it but it allows me to show my more garrulous side or goofball side.” Taylor concluded, “I can go from playing in front of 150,000 people with Slipknot and then doing a club show with Stone Sour for 800 people and I get the same joy out of it.”

Stone Sour recently returned to the studio to begin recording a covers album, which is expected to be released next year.

Meanwhile, Slipknot will release ‘.5: The Gray Chapter’ on Oct. 21. The disc is available for pre-order at Amazon or iTunes. The band will kick off their upcoming tour at Knotfest in San Bernardino, Calif. on Oct. 25 and 26. Check out all their tour dates here.